damien wrote:I finally decided looking at the 2000 or 3000 thousand dollars I have in Amateur radio, to simply admit its all over. After being harassed and interfered with and the FCC doing nothing plus the general low level to asleep walking conversations.. I say good bye after 50 years.
I was originally licensed as a novice in 1960 while in Junior High school. In those days you needed to pass muster to stay licensed. That met pass a 50 question exam where the answers were no pre published and 13 wpm code speed.

Interest in HR generally has faded and the power of wealth struggle to keep their financial ships a float so LOWER standards and draw in people of fairly below average IQ and not even a high school level education.
But, its not just these folks, its the god boring nets where they exchange signal reports and local weather forecasts plus gasoline prices.
Who that is NOT brain dead would stay in such a place for long.
Well as it turns out many of them are past 70 years of age and won't be around for long.

So I bid this once interesting science hobby good bye forever. Its just a question of should I ask the FCC to cancel my license which doesn't expire until 2029?

Great first post Why bother to register to tell us your quitting the hobby
Bye then, please close the door behind you there's a good chap.

A he hasn't come back, I re-read his post and I think we can draw conclusions.

After being harassed and interfered with and the FCC doing nothing plus the general low level to asleep walking conversations.

Sounds familiar? That UK guy we spoke about recently where everyone was winding him up? Maybe this is what happened here, and we're hearing a victims side of a common story.

In fact, despite me getting my licence back a few year ago after 20 years, the number of conversations I hear as I drive around the country is amazingly small. Ham radio is exactly what outsiders think it is. A load of quite dull people, talking about very little of interest. The same subjects. Weather, the state of the roads, the poor performance of the local repeater, the fact that parking is bad, the price of food in Tesco - all low level stuff that's dull. Occasionally you come across two people doing experiments. Much more interesting to listen to, but they're not looking for chat - they're doing something serious, but isolationist - which is fine. Most hams have lots of money tied up in their hobby, so discount that one. Frankly, unless you find a little niche area where you can exist on your own or with a small group, you get lonely. It's common now to knock everything but do nothing. Reading forums I note common bashing themes. Bash (in no particular order) OFCOM, FCC, RSGB, ARRL,RAYNET, novices and new hams, CB'ers, PMR446 legit and non-legit users, anyone using Chinese gear - the list goes on.

In truth, exactly the same things happened when I was first licensed - nothing at all has changed. The attitudes continue. We still laugh at people - we laugh at the young ham in a Smart Car, who has a multiband HF antenna on top with guy ropes to the bumpers. We laugh at the guy in the wheelchair who has a dual band white stick cable tied to the rear, we laugh at the ridiculous amount of metalwork some radio people stick on their roofs, oblivious to the anger it causes the neighbours. At least now when we interfere with the local TV reception we don't get the blame so much as pictures just vanishing isn't so much of a giveaway as your voice coming through their TV sets!

But most of all, we get outraged when our hobby gets spoiled because it isn't what we want it to be - some utopia of radio delight where we all get along, equipment is cheap and brilliant, and everyone can do whatever they want with no comebacks at all. We get so cross that we leave the hobby amid a posting spree on every forum they we can find having that final, last, immortalised word - bye. The trouble is, nobody cares!

The chap won't be banned, as hasn't breached any rules. I actually hope he comes back, so that he can be challenged on some of his views though. Open debate and civilised discussion is how the world works

NUBSTER wrote:Don't think you could have a sensable discussion with someone who lives in a country run by madman

as with our election here in the UK, a good chunk of them did NOT vote for the 'madman', they just got what they got. Those people may well be able to hold down a sensible discussion, who knows. Said user may even be one of those whom voted against Madness, who knows......

Is he really mad? He's a multi billionaire and the most powerful man in the World. I would suggest he's very clever to get to that position, and most of what we see is engineered to please those who put him in the position of power. He's giving his supporters what they voted for, which is more than many politicians manage.